8 Biggest Talent Exoduses In Wrestling History
2. The Monday Night Wars
Though the Monday Night Wars were too vast and far-reaching to be classified as an individual talent exodus, it acts a perfect banner for a number of smaller scale talent raids throughout the 1990s. It seemed like barely a week would pass without at least one wrestler jumping between WCW and the WWF in those days, with WCW particularly aggressive in their acquisitions.
The early 90s saw WCW draft in some of the WWF’s biggest former stars in Hulk Hogan, Randy Savage, and Jake Roberts. Each experienced a varying level of success in WCW, but their signings represented a huge statement (Hogan in particular), and set the tone for the years that followed.
The Wars kicked off with Lex Luger jumping ship on the first episode of Nitro, with wrestlers like Scott Hall, Kevin Nash, the Steiner Bros, and Bret Hart following over the coming years. The WWE were not shy on raiding their competition, either, and specialised in taking discarded midcarders like Triple H and Chris Jericho and turning them into megastars.
Literally dozens of wrestlers switched between WWE and WCW during the Monday Night Wars. Given WWE’s current lack of competition, it’s extremely unlikely that we’ll ever see this kind of drawn-out, multi-year talent exodus again.